Ice Cold Comfort
by AlsLingo
Summary: Sometimes it takes a friend to help you through, sometimes it's a stranger.


"**It gets easier." **

**You can hear yourself say the words, but you're not sure if it's the truth. It doesn't get easier; at least it doesn't feel as hard as it does in the beginning. Because easier feels like a myth, easier doesn't come when you beg for it. Easier doesn't come all of a sudden. Easier happens with the slow drawl of time, and mistakes. Some how the pain lessens its grip and you think breathing might be a little less hard then it has been. It might bring the relief you'd been so desperate to have before, and suddenly it's almost at your door, knocking inviting you in with a smile. **

**Relief is more than just an emotion; it's more than just a reaction to good news. It's the cool surrender of things that feel good. It's the sudden lightness that's on your shoulders. It's the air that's suddenly easier to breathe. And it's there, you can almost miss it, but it's still there and it's all that you're hanging on to and sometimes in the middle of the day, or the night or sometimes when you grab a note that she'd hidden in your backpack you feel your fingers slipping. But you know, you really do this time that you're going to wake up tomorrow and you're going to survive. And not just survive you're going to be happy. You have to be, because if you didn't, if you let yourself wallow in the past of things that don't work out you'd fall back in to your old steps. **

**Habits die hard. They wrap around you, holding tight to you, warming you in a way that people who have them only know. You smile some, because you know that falling back on old habits used to be your thing, it used to be the only way you knew to survive. And you knew how to survive, because despite many things you are not, a survivor you are. You think how easy it all had been, taking a drink, spewing vicious words to any person that would land in your path throwing a hit or two for good measure, just to prove to yourself and any other person who questioned, you're stronger than the person you left in high school. Your one true objective though was to hurt the thing that you hurt more. It would work and you feel triumph, but it didn't last long and eventually that you were hiding from slithered it's way back, haunting your head, and blackening your heart. **

**A part of you knows that it'd be easy to fall back in to old habits, those habits that kept you alive all those years ago, but you're not that person anymore. It's part cliché, part reality. How hard it can be to stay the unchanged, how much easier it is to change, to let go and to let old lies die at your feet. People choose to stay the same, they choose to hang on to what they know and what they know, you are sure, isn't much. And that, you realize, makes you feel sorry for them. There was a reason why you didn't choose to be that guy. Before, it'd been because of her, but now, now it's more than just a relationship, it's your life now that's become important. You smile a little more often, you laugh more times for the sake of happiness, rather than the ridiculous game of making someone else's life miserable. Life is better; you know its better because you've felt it worse. **

**He looks at you like he's waiting for you to hit him. And you might, just because he thinks you could. Your finger itch to shake the pain he's holding, because it's got you too and suddenly more desperately before you want to shake away the pain of losing this girl. You think maybe you're not sorry, not sorry for a second because you too understand what it feels like. To see her walk away, to feel her slip through your fingers, like silk. And you know, now, that she was worth it. And you'd do it all over again. And still, maybe it isn't the girl, it's the way you fall that makes you worry. **

**But today, right in this very moment you understand what he's feeling, how words are a cold, ice cold comfort. How when it had been you, alcohol soothed your burned heart and venom spat out your mouth. Sometimes, no matter what people say, trashing your life gives a sweet relief that can't be outweighed. You think back to when it wasn't easier, it was harder, much harder than it is now. And you wish that you had someone who had told you those words. And you can't believe it's you, telling him. But some how, here it's you, telling him. Offering some sort of comfort. **

**You aren't going to tell him what he so desperately wants to hear, because you know that's not how he's really feeling, you can't bring yourself to speak badly of her. Because when you love someone, you always love them, in different ways than before. So you tell him the one thing he needs to hear. Confusion is clouding his eyes and you know you'll have to elaborate your attempt at words of wisdom. And now you think that you never should have said anything, but you continue just the same. **

"**Somewhere down the road. It gets easier."**

**You smile some, because you know you should and walk away. If you could take back what you just said, you think to yourself you might. But you know it wouldn't change what just happened. His eyes flicker a bit, some shock, more grief and a small glimmer of relief. And some how, in some weird way maybe, it becomes him that helps you. Maybe this wisdom stuff really does work. **

**Maybe moving on does get easier, with some time, a little help. Maybe after all, moving on is more important than making the time easier. Easier. You'd laugh, but that'd be easy.**


End file.
